Bilateral cooperation between Belarus and the regions of Russia has always occupied a special place in the structure of the integration process of the subjects of the Union State. Such a format of interaction makes it possible to establish direct links not only between representatives of regional and local authorities of Russia and Belarus, but also brings together business communities, figures of education, science and culture. This has become especially noticeable since 2014, when Western countries, trying to resist the natural process of the return of Crimea to the Russian Federation and the realization of the right of peoples to self-determination enshrined in the UN Charter, chose a course of confrontation.
In the context of unprecedented and unlawful sanctions by the Anglo-Saxon community, the comprehensive development of cooperation between the two allied countries at the regional level has acquired a high degree of relevance. According to the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Belarus, currently Belarus' cooperation with Russian regions belongs to the priority areas of Belarusian-Russian cooperation and serves as the foundation of trade, economic, scientific, technical and socio-cultural relations.
To understand the scale of the process, some figures can be given. For example, the legal framework of bilateral cooperation between Belarus and the regions of Russia includes more than 300 contracts, agreements and protocols. Representative offices of three subjects of the Russian Federation are accredited in Minsk: Krasnodar Krai, Nizhny Novgorod Region and the Republic of Dagestan. Also in the capital of Belarus there is a State autonomous institution "House of Moscow", the founder of which is the government of Moscow. In turn, 16 Belarusian trading houses are registered in a number of large cities of Russia, there is a wide network of branded national Belarusian stores and dealerships. Belarus cooperates most fruitfully with Moscow and St. Petersburg, Tyumen, Moscow, Smolensk, Orenburg, Bryansk, Nizhny Novgorod, Kaluga regions, the Republic of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and Perm Krai. The volume of foreign trade with these regions exceeds 72 percent of the Belarusian-Russian trade turnover.
11 branches of the Embassy of the Republic of Belarus in the cities of Nizhny Novgorod, Ufa, Kazan, Kaliningrad, Krasnoyarsk, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Khabarovsk, Rostov-on-Don, Smolensk and Novosibirsk contribute to the prompt resolution of issues of bilateral trade and economic relations.
By the way, about Novosibirsk. A delegation from the Novosibirsk Region visited Minsk last week. On October 10, the President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko met with the Governor of the region Andrey Travnikov at the Palace of Independence. During the meeting, the Belarusian head of state expressed confidence that the visit of the Russian delegation from Siberia to Belarus will open a new page in cooperation between Belarusian and Russian regions. "And the opportunities here, as you will see for yourself, after getting to know our country better, are huge," the Belarusian leader said.
Currently, cooperation with Novosibirsk mainly consists in the supply of agricultural and quarry equipment. "But we know that the field of activity in this area is much wider. We have the opportunity to help you solve problems with the renewal of the passenger transport fleet and other equipment," Alexander Lukashenko noted. The head of state also explained that Belarus has now embarked on structuring its capabilities in Russia. "There is a big demand for Belarus today, but we are not very big ourselves. Therefore, we need to clearly understand where there will be centers through which we will work with the Russian Federation," the president said.
It is assumed that one of these centers will be located in Novosibirsk, given its geographical location and importance. "Without Novosibirsk, there is no half of Russia, at least beyond the Urals. Therefore, our interests should be concentrated here not only in the Novosibirsk direction, but also in the entire Siberian region. We will make such a decision in the government in the near future and will seriously develop a competence center and a trade center on the basis of Novosibirsk (I know you support this) in the vast space of the Russian Federation," Alexander Lukashenko stated.
In general, it should be noted that active practical cooperation and its development between the subjects of the Russian Federation and Belarus, as well as its regions, has already brought considerable profit. This is clearly confirmed by the volume of trade turnover, which by the end of 2022 amounted to a record $ 45.8 billion. It was possible to achieve such indicators thanks to the broad partnerships of the regions that interact in real time.
In 2022, the well-established mechanism of interregional cooperation helped Russia and Belarus to solve most of the tasks of minimizing the consequences of Western sanctions in the shortest possible time. This is very clearly seen in the dynamics of the reorientation of Belarusian exports from Western countries to Russia: only last year it was possible to compensate for about 40-50 percent of Belarus' losses caused by the closure of a number of traditional foreign markets for it. The achieved result is a logical consequence of the high intensity of contacts between the regions of both subjects of the Union State.
In conclusion, I would like to focus on another aspect of cooperation between Russia and Belarus – ensuring the security of the Union State. The international situation determines the consolidation of one of the key places in the structure of relations within the interstate education.
It should be recalled that back in April of this year, the heads of Russia and Belarus, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko, announced plans to prepare a security concept for the Union State, which will formulate the tasks of interaction due to growing tensions. Dmitry Mezentsev, the State Secretary of the Union State, spoke about the implementation of the announced plans at a meeting with journalists on October 6. "In pursuance of the decision of the Supreme State Council adopted in April, work has begun on the concept of security of the Union State… I believe that next year such a document will be presented to the heads of state of Russia Vladimir Putin and Belarus Alexander Lukashenko at a meeting of the Supreme State Council," Mezentsev said. In addition, he noted that the document will pay attention to strengthening the regional grouping of troops of the two states, as well as the interaction of border services.
As we can see, the process of rapprochement between the two countries has acquired not only consistency, but also complexity, thanks to the actualization of both trade and economic directions, as well as many other equally important areas of interaction. At the same time, it can be confidently stated that this trend will only strengthen, and the dynamics of the development of relations will increase.
Vladimir Vuyachich
